What's your make-it-or-break-it election issue?

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When you hear Barack Obama talk about building the middle class and providing a chance for all Americans to go to college and start businesses and find success, you may not agree with him, but you know he is telling the truth.

The president has also been an astute leader on the world stage. Not perfect, but better than Romney, who seems to lack finesse and tact in international interactions. His tone-deaf tour of Europe was embarrassing and clumsy. His blunders on Russia and Israel and even on the Olympic Games in England are “tells.” He’s a smart businessman who “don’t know much about history.”

Compare that with candidate Obama’s tour of Europe in 2008. The crowds, in the hundreds of thousands, cheered him on. He did so well that the Republicans accused him of acting like a “celebrity.” He couldn’t help it if people responded to his call for change.

Could Romney learn on the job? I suppose so. But we have someone good at the helm. Why change captains in these rough seas?

Yes, many of us have multiple reasons for sticking with President Obama. But for me, and many other women and men, the right to choose is the deal-maker and the deal-breaker. There is something so basic about being able to make decisions about your own body; the thought of someone, or some government, challenging that right is horrifying.

If you sit down with any group of women and the discussion turns to abortion, and the women are honest, you will discover that the right to choose abortion is exercised by women of all faiths and all walks of life, all the time. When Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, says his faith informs his decision on abortion, then he and his wife shouldn’t choose abortion. When Romney says he now opposes abortion, that’s OK if it’s a personal decision. But here’s the thing: Their beliefs, whether religious or moral or political, must not infringe on any woman’s right to choose.

Romney’s mask-of-the-week puts him in the camp of the far right. No choice on reproductive rights. Well, maybe in the case of rape or incest or a threat to the life of the mother, although other Republicans would allow no exceptions.

Sid Tanenbaum, who lived in Woodmere and owned a metal-stamping shop in Far Rockaway, where he was known more for his charitable ways than his two-handed set shot, has been honored for the past 30 years with a basketball tournament that raises scholarship money for students in the Five Towns.